The most mundane horror game you’ll ever play where instead of getting jump scared, you get that DS feeling. Enjoy being blue-balled by the most inane obstacles (why can’t you just step over the dude laying down in front of the stairwell?) for over half the game while not making an inch of progress in your main objective, and then actively resisting any easily-digestible interpretation of events once you finally do. Instead of any cool action sequence to conclude the game with, you pull out your calculator and do math homework for 20 minutes.

Of course, as evidenced by the rating, I mean that in the best way possible. It’s become “Backloggd-core”, a game beloved here that is deemed one of the greatest examples of Western gaming journalists failing to understand video games as anything other than a toy, so there are already plenty of reviews here to sing its praises. To describe it on a more personal level: I definitely found it to be a frustrating experience and I was pretty loudly complaining while streaming it because my brain was screaming for some form as stimulation as I slowly moved Sumio across the beach road for the 15th time. But on reflection, I think that feeling gets enveloped by the surrealist humor and more quiet moments of pontification. It still doesn’t make much sense without The Silver Case as a deciphering tome but in hindsight, Sumio’s character arc becomes so much easier to trace, and the false capitalistic paradise of the titular hotel makes the frustration easier to understand as by design rather than accident. I really couldn’t recommend this to anybody that isn’t already fairly deep on the metaphorical iceberg meme of video game tastes but it’s a secret treasure to those who are in the loop.